Captured by the Navajos eBook

I listened intently, and presently heard the distant
bleating of sheep, and soon after the deeper low of
an ox.

“The Indians must be approaching,” I replied.
“You may stir up the men. Be careful that
no noise is made.”

I continued to listen, and after a long time noticed
a sound like the rushing of wind in a pine forest.
It was the myriad feet of the coming flocks and herds,
hurrying along the grassy valley. The men began
to assemble about me, all preserving perfect silence,
listening for the approaching Indians.

Another half-hour passed, and over a roll in the surface
of the valley, revealed against the sky, looking many
times their actual size in the uncertain perspective,
appeared two tall figures, whose nearer approach showed
to be mounted Indians piloting the captured stock,
which followed close behind.

“Corporal Henry,” I said, “drop
carefully down into the trail and skirt closely along
the wall until you come to Sergeant Cunningham’s
position, and tell him the Indians are close by.
Tell him also to allow the two Indians in advance
to pass unmolested.”

I sent this order by the younger boy because I suspected
he was feeling that Corporal Frank’s expedition
to Jemez, with the adventures of the return trip,
had given him a certain prominence to be envied.
I meant Henry should divide honors with his brother
hereafter.

The little corporal silently disappeared beneath the
wall, and a few minutes afterwards the two Indians
entered the defile, and the goats and sheep, which
had been spread widely over the open valley, scampered,
crowded, and overleaped one another as they closed
into the narrow way. There seemed to be fully
two thousand of them, intermingled with a motley herd
of horses, mules, asses, and kine of all sizes and
descriptions, numbering three hundred or more, all
driven by a party of seventy-three Indians.

The cattle-thieves were evidently congratulating themselves
upon having run the gantlet of the military camp and
being out of danger, for they had abandoned the traditional
reserve of the Indian race, and were talking loudly
and hilariously as they passed my wing of the ambuscade.
The Indians fell completely into the trap, and they
and the cattle with them were captured without any
difficulty.

During the winter our supply of grain ran short, and
I sent a party, with the Cordovas as guides, to Jemez.
They were unable to get through the snow, and the
elder Cordova was so badly frost-bitten that in spite
of all we could do he died in the camp.

Then I went with a larger party, and was successful.
On June 1st orders came to break up the camp, and
on the 9th the accumulated stores of nineteen months’
occupation were packed, and with a train of ten wagons
we set out for Santa Fe.